Ora et labora... "Pray and work." This is the motto of the Rule of St. Benedict, written in 516 by the famous founder of Western monasticism, Benedict of Nursia. For fifteen centuries Benedictine monks have lived their lives according to this motto, performing manual labor and praying to God. Many laypeople have similarly taken this [...]
As we celebrate Christmas, the most familiar of stories, we should be aware that its very familiarity can numb us to its importance: the center of all prayer, the mystery of the Incarnation, when God submitted himself to the human form in the radical dependency of a newborn’s pure petition. Last week, the Catholic News [...]
Chesterton once observed of his perennial sparring partner, George Bernard Shaw, that he would need to live for 300 years to finally be able to accept Catholic faith. Might we apply that same rule to the late controversialist Christopher Hitchens? A prolific writer of twelve books and five collections of essays, and a staple in [...]
Willmoore Kendall's works on political science were pathbreaking and survive the test of time. Even today, it is impossible to understand the equal democratic legitimacy of the presidency and Congress without his “Two Majorities,” or the critical role of local-based political parties without his "American Party System," or how the whole Constitution works to solve [...]
I know how it is. Our shopping isn’t done yet, either. That’s why we all need some ideas. Here are some good ones: books you’ve seen, not on TV, but—even better—on TIC. Admit it—you forgot to give somebody a gift and are scrambling. In "A Hans and Franz Christmas Book List," I offered a selection [...]
As we look forward to Christmas dinner with our families, you may be surprised to learn that someone else who always enjoyed his Christmas dinner claimed to be a vegetarian. That someone was the portly G. K. Chesterton. How could that be? After all, he was anything but a slim, trim fellow. And yet by [...]
What are our students going to be bringing into their first contact with this world? Primarily sanity. Grounded in the real virtues, cardinal and theological, they understand themselves and others as loved by God, given life by His will, sustained by His purposes. It’s Finals week at Wyoming Catholic College. Since Monday, students have been [...]
Dear Santa, Last week, I sent you a list of recently published books which I hoped you would consider placing under the tree of those good boys and girls who enjoy reading the same sort of books that I do. Those books were mostly about the great writers, thinkers and musicians who have graced the [...]
America from the beginning encouraged a broad and generic religiosity, yet allowed for the free practice of specific religions. Indeed, the historic creeds were implanted, took root, and flowered in America. This has created a certain tension, in which the religions risk losing their identity in favor of a vague national consensus. Commentators have long [...]
Well before his death, Harry Jaffa saw the American regime gradually descending into a deadly brew of positivism, atheism, and nihilism. Given this “collapse of the soul” of American politics, Jaffa’s America was becoming increasingly alienated from both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Soul of Politics: Harry Jaffa and the Fight for [...]
You remember Hans and Franz, the two bodybuilders depicted as cousins of Ahhhnold Schwarzenegger from Saturday Night Live and played by Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon? One of their two most famous catchphrases was, “Hear me now, believe me later!” That’s my line for this list of book gift ideas. I’ll be writing fuller reviews [...]
It is understandable that those forced into the ghetto or shepherded onto the reservation should feel anger. It is reasonable to expect that those who are forcibly marginalized will be resentful of those who have used force against them. But this is the way of the world. It is not the way of Christ, nor [...]
To assess accurately the state of Western Civilization, one needs to understand how the Western tradition, standing at the peak of its influence and popularity at the turn of the twentieth century, ended up in such a state of siege a century later. The reports of the death of Western Civilization are neither premature nor [...]
"St. Benedict found the world, physical and social, in ruins, and his mission was to restore it in the way not of science, but of nature, not as if setting about to do it, not professing to do it by any set time, or by any rare specific, or by any series of strokes, but [...]